Blogs from County Donegal, Ireland, Europe - page 8

The subject heading says it all. I embarked on a Donegalese adventure on monday morning after a great weekend in Sligo. Sunday was kind of an archaelogical tour of County Sligo as I traveled around and saw all the touristy sites that is on every Irish tour company itinerary. We saw a waterfall, the tomb of W.B. Yeats, the tomb of Turlough O'Carolan the legendary 18th century blind harpist from County Meath. The coolest thing we saw was this site filled with 5000 year old (now this is pre-Celtic) stone rings which is believed to be ancient burial sites. The massive stones comprising these things aren't even from around there which means someone shlepped them from 4 miles away before the age of 18-wheelers. So that was Sligo. County Donegal rocks (no pun intended.....sorry to the ... read more

Here we are in Donegal, Ireland, ancestral home of James Greer... We took the ferry from Holyhead, Wales to Dublin on Friday and spent the night in a very nice hotel. Saturday we took a bus tour down to Cork and Blarney Castle. Seeing the castle and kissing the Blarney Stone (I did; Dad declined) were pretty cool, but the tour itself... not so much. We decided no more tours for us; we're doing the rest of the sightseeing on our own. Sunday we chilled out for a while, planned the rest of the trip, and went to see Indiana Jones, which I quite enjoyed. Monday we left Dublin and drove througha very scenic countryside to the Cliffs of Moher. Dad wouldn't let me near the edge, but the cliffs were still impressively high and we ... read more

With St. Patrick's day being tomorrow, doesn't Ireland seem like an appropriate place to write about this week? I spent 2 weeks visiting my friends in Northern Ireland back in 2001, and only spent a few days in the actual Republic of Ireland. In just a few short days, I did learn a few interesting tidbits of Irish culture. Irish cuisine overall is nothing to scream at, and yes, it is pretty bland and boring. Corned beef and cabbage, sausages, and crisps pretty much round out the Irish diet, and you won't find a Taco Bell on the entire island. However, if there is one thing the Irish do know how to do, it's how to start your day off with a heart attack. I'm referencing none other than the famous Ulster Fry, also known as ... read more

Woke up early in the morning to drive in to Driffield to catch the bus over to Leeds. This time it was the Coastliner bus. I tried to sleep as much as possible but these buses and roads are not accomedation with all the stops they make. We missed the first bus out of Leeds bus station, and the second one was running late. I was worried we might miss our check-in time and miss the flight as Ryan Air is one of the most punctual airlines in Europe at moment or so they advertise. Thankfully though there weren't enough buses running at the airport to ferry people to their planes so our flight was delayed an hour. The flight over to Dublin has to be one of the most fun I've had as far as ... read more

I've just spent the weekend in County Donegal in a cute little town called Malenbeg. We headed over on Friday night and had a lot of fun finding our hostel at 10pm at night as it's almost as far west in the county as you can go on a one way road. After waking in the morning to find that we had a pretty good view over the ocean we headed back east for about and hour to the Slieve League which are the highest sea cliffs in Europe (according to the trusty lonely planet guide). We spent a spectacular morning working our way up part of the cliffs and also sliding down them on my butt on the way back down. Unfortunately as it's winter though we were advised not to do the hike over ... read more